Washington's Serbian Institute Idolizes War Criminals January 23, 2014 - Washington, D.C. - On January 9, 2014, the Serbian Institute (SI), a Washington, D.C.-based think tank whose goal is to be the voice of the Serbian people marked the National Day of Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina's smaller entity, in Chicago, Illinois. Among the notable individuals that joined SI were Mr. Marinko Avramovic, Counselor in the Consular Affairs Section at the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the United States, Mr. Predrag Pecanac, Consul General of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Mr. Nebojsa Acimovic, Counsul General of the Republic of Serbia in Chicago, Illinois. The event was broadcast via video that was posted on the Internet in which Danielle Sremac, President of SI, along with other speakers, spoke fondly of indicted war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic who are currently on trial for genocide and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague. Sremac, who served as an official spokesperson of the Bosnian Serb leadership in Washington, D.C. during the 1992-1995 war of aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina, stated that she was happy to hear that the audience remembers Karadzic and Mladic, as they are the people who created Republika Srpska. "I remember them in the cold mountains as I traveled to Jahorina and Pale, around the borders of Sarajevo and Srebrenica, and it was nicer and warmer for me during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina than it was in Washington where there was another type of battle that was really harsh," stated Sremac. What was even more appalling and disturbing was that the video from the event was continuously interspersed with images of the marauding Bosnian Serb forces and images of shelling of the city of Sarajevo and other places in Bosnia and Herzegovina. These images are offensive to the victims of the Bosnian war and to humanity. ACBH in strongest terms deplores the continued idolization of indicted war criminals responsible for genocide and ethnic cleansing, by groups such as SI. Therefore, ACBH urges members of the U.S. Congress and the Obama Administration to take a firm stand against groups and organizations that operate in the United States and show no respect for the victims of the genocidal campaign waged by the military forces of Republika Srpska. It is important to note that Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus on Bosnia, and a longstanding friend of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bosnian Americans introduced House Resolution 199 in 2005, which was unanimously passed in U.S. Congress, and which states that "the policies of aggression and ethnic cleansing as implemented by Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995 meet the terms defining the crime of genocide."